In general, carrier tapes that are used to transport components from a component manufacturer to a different manufacturer that assembles the components into new products are well known. For example, in the field of electronic circuit assembly, electronic components are often carried from a supply of such components to a specific location on a circuit board for attachment thereto. The components may be of several different types, including surface mount components. Particular examples include memory chips, integrated circuit chips, resistors, connectors, dual in-line processors, capacitors, gate arrays, etc. Such components are typically affixed to a circuit board that may later be incorporated into an electronic device.
Rather than manually affixing each individual electronic component to a circuit board, the electronics industry makes extensive use of robotic placement machines, sometimes known as “pick-and-place” machines, which grasp a component at a specific location (the supply) and place it at another specific location (the circuit board). To ensure the sustained operation of the robotic placement machine, a continuous supply of electronic components must be furnished to the machine at a predetermined rate and location to permit the machine to be programmed to repeat a precise sequence of movements during every cycle. It is therefore important that each such component be located in the same position (i.e. the point at which the robotic placement machine grasps the component) as each preceding and succeeding component.
One way to provide a continuous supply of electronic components to a desired location is to use a carrier tape. Conventional carrier tapes generally comprise an elongated strip that has a series of identical pockets formed at predetermined, uniformly spaced intervals along the length of the tape. The pockets are designed to receive an electronic component. The electronic component is typically placed in the pocket by a robotic device known as a pick-and-place machine. Downstream of the point where the electronic components are loaded into the pockets of the carrier tape, a continuous cover tape is applied over the elongated strip to retain the components in the pockets. The tapes also normally include a series of through holes uniformly spaced along one or both edges of the elongated strip. The through holes receive the teeth of a drive sprocket that advances the tape toward the robotic placement machine.
Eventually, the carrier tape is fed to another robotic placement machine that strips the continuous cover tape from the carrier and removes the components from the pockets and places them onto the circuit board.